


Patterns

by laheyisaac



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociation, F/M, Natasha's got some deep-seated issues and we all love her for it, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating will go up, Unresolved Romantic Tension, also not an actual death fic because those can rot and i'm not that masochistic lmao, commitment and abandonment issues make for a good mental cocktail
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-26 05:08:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13228713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laheyisaac/pseuds/laheyisaac
Summary: Five years ago, Natasha was happy. She had a stable job, a nice apartment in Brooklyn, and a man who loved her. But deep down she knew these things were only masking the hard truths: how she'd lost her parents before she'd even learned to walk, how she'd bounced from foster home to foster home like an unwanted burden, and how a combination of the two had led to a deep, dark feeling of abandonment to form within her like a parasite. Five years ago, that feeling drove her to prematurely save herself from that pain, and she ended her relationship with Steve before he could leave her too.But then Steve died. And Natasha found out some more hard truths, including how things may have been different had she simply waited. Five years ago, she died right along with him, and now she's just an empty shell of the person she used to be.(Or, in which Steve has the amnesia, but he's the one who helps Nat remember who she had once been).





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warnings for:** mental health issues, all of which i have tagged. i didn't tag depression, but Nat can probably be seen that way, if not explicitly so.

"He had a whim

That sunlight carried blessing.

And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."

Now he is dead."

— excerpt from  _Patterns_ , by Amy Lowell

 

It is exactly 7:48 p.m. on a cloudless, slightly humid Tuesday night when Natasha Romanoff is proposed to by a man she does not love.

As if the words have paused time, Nat allows herself a brief second to reflect on everything that could have possibly led to this exact moment: she has been dating Matt just shy of six months; she knows he prefers cheap, piss-tasting beer and no bell peppers on his pizza; she has two drawers reserved in his bedroom just for her spare clothing and half the shit clogging his DVR is stuff that she recorded. They see movies, they go out to bars, they eat spicy takeout on his living room floor, and they fuck, not always in that specific order but often enough that it has almost become habitual.

That's the thing though, isn't it?  _Habitual_. Natasha has purposely made her relationship with Matt monotonous, definitely teetering on the edge of flat-out boring. She's made it so that things are simple, casual—just barely scratching the surface of satisfaction. She succeeded in that. No, she  _thought_ she succeeded in that; one look at Matt's face tells her she's dead wrong. He's being completely sincere. Their short time together has clearly been significant to him in a way that it hasn't for her. He has, somehow, seen something within her that he has grown to  _love_ , though she has no idea what it could be: for the past five years Natasha has been completely, categorically, and irrevocably  _empty_.

It's just a fact, one that no longer bothers her. Frankly, she's not sure it ever did, but it's a direct reason as to why she never wanted anything complicated with Matt, nevertheless. She doesn't do attachment. It's nothing personal; she hasn't let someone in in a long time, not in any way that mattered. Sure, she can put on a front. Churning small-talk into something falsely meaningful and making barely-invested hums and "uh-huh"s sound like fully engrossed replies are her forte, an automatic habit that she can't seem to shut off. Evidently, Matt has eaten up that entire persona. If he'd been paying attention, he'd have noticed the little details: how she never talks about herself; how she never brings up any of her exes whenever he does his; how she tries not to look him in the eyes whenever they have sex, lest she see a face that doesn't belong to him. Part of her feels—no,  _knows_ —she hadn't been trying very hard. That same part had pitied him for it, wished he'd just break up with her, save himself from her apathy. But instead he's fallen in love with a cardboard cutout—a bland, cold imitation of what the real Nat had once been, and has gone and asked for her hand in marriage.

A heavy feeling briefly sets in her stomach. It's like a pattern... one that's been haunting her since she was twenty-three years-old.

Matt's hand light squeezing her own is what brings her back to reality. Her smile, mysterious and guarded, hasn't left her face. His eyes are drawn to it, to her.

"Matt, I'm honored," she begins, and his own smile, hopeful and, to her, reminiscent of a phantom of her past, widens. That is, until she slides her hand from beneath his and settles it in her lap. He doesn't move his fingers where they lay limp on the white tablecloth. They're blunt, thick, hairy-knuckled—fingers belonging to a man she feels nothing for. "But I can't."

Confusion creases his face. Like a slideshow, more things she'd failed to see as foreshadowing of this moment zip through her mind. Breakfast in bed, tender smiles she couldn't genuinely return, whispered words that should have resonated but didn't. Maybe the slight movement of his lips against her shoulder she'd felt months ago was a whispered "I love you", one she'd been too stuck in her head at the time to catch. 

"You can't?"

"No." For how callously she treated him and his non-explicit love these past six months, her words aren't cruel. Nat knows he deserves that much; she makes sure to deliver them with a softness that she desperately wishes reaches her eyes, but knows doesn't. The honesty, however, is real. "You're a good guy. But no, I can't marry you, not now."

Part of him relaxes, as if he can still salvage this. "It's too soon, right?"

"Maybe," she truthfully replies. She knows her answer would remain the same even if Matt had waited years, but perhaps there's an alternate reality out there where Natasha accepts his proposal on this very same stuffy Tuesday evening. Maybe in that world it's raining, or maybe the weather is just right. Maybe he's pressing the proposal into her fingers with a kiss, one by one, as they sit on the leather futon in Matt's loft, the one she hates. Maybe that Natasha loves the futon. Maybe that Natasha loves  _him_.

This Natasha doesn't. This Nat, in a split-second but resolute decision she made the very instant the words  _will you marry me_ crossed the threshold of his lips, silently vows to never call Matt again.

"I can work with a maybe," he says. The hopefulness returns to his face and she has to look away. Matt has brown eyes, not blue. Brown hair, not blonde. Matt isn't him. He could never be him.

They finish their dinner in a manner that is only slightly stilted; she expects nothing else from an evening revolving around a marriage proposal that has since been rejected, but Matt tries to make it seem like he's not as let down as he looks (another problem, a should-have-been warning: he's too genuine in all the ways she isn't). She kisses him goodbye outside of the restaurant, and because he doesn't yet know that this is the last time he'll ever see her, asks if they can have lunch later in the week. She doesn't answer. Instead, she pats him once on the arm and smiles.

It's the mysterious one, the one he can never quite see past. But his eyes don't leave her own for one second, so Nat witnesses the exact moment when something in them shifts. It's bittersweet, but full of dawning comprehension. It's like a lightbulb fighting for a flicker of light in a dark room. Natasha knows who she is in that analogy, and for the first time since she's known him, she thinks Matt finally understands too.

☽ ☾

Sometimes Natasha's feet move of their own accord. Sometimes she's an outside observer of her own life, watching her body operate on autopilot. Sometimes that body blinks and she's suddenly in it again, as well as somewhere she truly has no idea how she got to in the first place. After the first time it happened, she typed a word into google using fingers that didn't shake: dissociation. 

It's also how Natasha first stumbled upon the art gallery a year ago.

She remembers being fired from her third consecutive job in five years, and though she hadn't particularly liked the job itself, something within her had just... shut off. Still in her work clothes, smelling of diner menu plastic and hamburger grease, she'd wandered the streets of New York for hours before she finally felt  _tangible_ again, standing in front of a pair of tall, glass double-doors with a plaque reading  _Potts' Contemporary Art_ in sleek, silver letters hanging overhead. The color of the sky told her the sun had just set, but the hours printed on the door said that they were open until nine o'clock. If she wanted to, she could go inside.

The thing at the time was that art was an anchor from her old life, one that she had long since cast aside. Art contained too many memories that had once been good, amazing,  _breathtaking_. Memories that had since turned sour, like the rest of her. As she stared at the different paintings and sculptures and sketches lining the white walls through the front doors, she couldn't help but recollect the times she used to spend curled up in her old bed sheets, tendrils of sleep still lingering in her brain as she watched a familiar figure from beneath her eyelashes; sketchpad in his lap, fingers black with charcoal, lips tipped in a smirk he couldn't be bothered to hide as he pretended to not notice she was awake. She remembered visiting other galleries just like this one, pride beaming from within her for the man whose fingers were entwined with her own. God, how she remembered.

In that very instant, Potts' Contemporary Art had flooded Nat with things she'd mentally blocked for a very long time, and all of that suppression suddenly felt heavy. Nat wanted to go inside. She had then. She _does_ now _._

The back of her neck is sticky with sweat by the time she reaches the doors; she had refused Matt's offer of sharing a cab and instead opted to walk. That had been thirty minutes ago, but after ten of walking through the streets of this positively muggy night Nat had already peeled off her thin jacket and was debating stripping off her blouse too in favor of the camisole underneath. Truthfully, though, she had needed the walk to steel herself for entering the gallery again. It's the only place she allows herself to sink back into bitter nostalgia, where she stares at the canvases and thinks,  _this could still be your life._  It's masochistic. Depressing. A little pathetic. Still, it's the only place where she can feel anything but numb—still separated from the world, yeah, but in a way that's not so much frigid as it is... peaceful.

However, the tidal wave of old feelings and memories is enough to wobble her knees every time, and the fresh (if not stifling) air helps her prepare for that just a bit. She steels herself with one final breath as she pulls one of the glass doors open, the suctioned air slightly tickling her ears as she walks inside and ignores how her toes and the tips of her fingers have gone cold. She looks around at the displays and pushes past the potential triggers to the in-laid comfort, where she is several years younger and still fucked up but happy. She greets that Nat like an old friend, moving away from the entryway to the photography section. She always starts here first, works her away around and saves the drawn and painted works, the ones that hit the closest to home, for last.

It's been a while since her last visit, definitely since before she'd started dating Matt, and many new pieces have been hung up. A photo of the New York Hall of Science printed on sheet metal catches her eye, the colors popping against the night sky underneath the overhead spotlight. She doesn't recognize the photographer, a P. Parker. Their other works are just as nice, but Nat never comes here with the intention of buying anything—it's not like she makes enough money to afford one on a hostess' paycheck, after all, and art is something that she keeps here besides. Her loft in Midtown is drab and empty beyond necessities. Her personality only exists here now, and she doesn't dare try and take a piece of it back with her. 

The welder of most of the metal sculptures she knows, a man named Tony Stark she's only seen in the gallery once. From that one occasion Nat's gathered he's got a thing for the curator, but she hadn't paid enough attention to them to gather more than that. Judging by the fact that most of his work is displayed here, the curator probably doesn't mind him all too much, though Natasha has to admit that he's pretty handy with iron. Or whatever metal is used in these sorts of things.

She skates through the wood sculptures, takes a moment to carefully inspect the ones made of blown glass, and before she knows it she's surrounded by landscapes and faces and objects done in different shades of pencils, pastels, charcoals, watercolor, and oil and acrylic paints. She breathes it all in, thinks of mason jars of paint water lining her windowsill and the smell of acetone. To her right, there's a collection of still-life neon watercolors, providing a modern spin on a classic art style. To her left, faceless oil portraits, some belonging to strangers in the street, others to an intimate figure sitting bathed in sunlight or draped in shadow. The biggest attention grabber is a hyperrealistic, wall-to-wall canvas of a woman's tear-brimmed eyes, so detailed that Natasha can count each individual eyelash but so lifelike that she thinks she imagines her own reflection in the pupil. It's definitely a worthy centerpiece, chilling in the way that Natasha still feels the eyes bearing into her as she turns her back and inspects the work on the opposite wall. 

Nat had picked up the habit of looking at the art itself before the name on the placard long ago. She'd been told by pretty lips and soulful eyes that it gave deeper meaning to the piece; artwork was usually a vulnerable, personal extension of the artist's own being and putting that out there was like baring one's soul. In that way, the artist wanted you to look inside them before  _at_ them. It was liquid bravery stroked on to a canvas; or solidified, captured through a lens or shaped with hands and heat. They were pretty words. Coincidentally, they were words spoken to her on the most meaningful first date she'd ever been on, and they were words she subsequently kept close to her heart. She didn't have that sort of bravery to expose herself so defenselessly; she ached for the kind of people that did.

This time's different. For some reason, Nat's eyes flick to the placard first and a small smile crosses her lips; her fingers reach out to trace the word with a finger.  _Anonymous_. A baring of a soul, but no face or name to match. It's more her style: nobody, nondescript; a secret. When she finally looks at the art, it's just as different. Guarded, unsure, a little hazy in some places. She can spot certain areas where the artist's hand faltered with that diffidence; a fingerprint near the top of the Brooklyn Bridge, a smudge on the curve of the Wonder Wheel, a blemished tree in Prospect Park. Instead of seeing them as mistakes, Natasha thinks they add character to the art. A street she recognizes from Flatbush and a cluster of buildings lining the Harbor are other landmarks she picks out among the throng of black-and-white charcoals, but it's not until she reaches a sketch of a five-story apartment building that a sense of vague familiarity presses heavy against her chest. The fire escapes are slightly misplaced and the windows are longer, a little too bunched together. The short staircase and door have been moved to the street corner, where a Jewish delicatessen ought to be, but yeah, it looks just like....

Natasha's dry tongue catches on her bottom lip when she tries to lick it, making her blink and refocus her gaze. No, it can't be. This gallery brings all sorts of memories back, so she definitely imagined it, right? It's not the same place. New York has tons of apartments, many of which look pretty similar to one another; this one timelessly captured in black lines and angles is not the same one she still sometimes thinks she'll wake up in, like the past five years have all been some sort of nightmare. But that's it—that's _just_ the thing—she's thought of that place in fragments. She's never taken the red comforter, the photo strip of a happy couple, the pair of hanging bathrobes and  _put them together_. She's compartmentalized everything. Denied herself the whole picture of that little apartment above the deli with the good pastrami and better memories because she knew it'd be too much. She knew the facade would crumble and crack open to reveal to the whole world that she is filled with a fat bit of nothingness. She'd lose that last semblance of control.

She  _has_ lost that control, because looking at this sketch makes her remember everything tenfold. She's no longer being spoon-fed pieces of her past, it's being crammed down her throat. Natasha, smiling, laughing, kissing a boy with soft eyes the color of the Atlantic and hair like spun gold.  _Steve_ , her mind supplies without her permission, finally relenting under the weight of five long years of repression. A name she hasn't thought or said aloud since the U.S. Army knocked on her door and spewed a gaggle of words that her shocked brain could only process as  _he's dead, dead, dead._

Missing in action. Presumed dead. Gone, all the same.

Nat's hand flies to her mouth and she stumbles away from the anonymous artist's sketches. Despite being the only customer in the gallery, she feels as if all eyes are on her, feels the realistic wall-to-wall painting casting judgmental looks in her direction. She's being closed in. Her heart's pounding in her ears. Where's the way _out_? She needs to leave; her eyes are moving frantically in search of the exit but all she can see is picture after picture after—

Picture. No, a portrait. The same charcoal lines as before, but more confident, more detailed; she all but forgets she was just on the verge of a panic attack, because the sight before her unnerves her to her core, so much so that she feels rooted to the spot. She flicks her gaxe over a sharp brow, low cheek bones, a pair of bee-stung lips. Olive eyes and red hair. Skin that's just barely a shade higher than what can be considered as pale. Natasha knows this because, unlike the others, this sketch is done in full color.

Natasha knows this because it's the same face she's been trying to avoid in the mirror every day for five years. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the poor dude proposing to Nat is a reference to Matt Murdock, who she dated in the comics. i know shit all about most comic-exclusive things and the guy is not _actually_ Matt himself, so it's really my own take on this Natasha's own currently fucked up view on things.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve Rogers likes his pastrami sandwiches with extra pickles. 

This information is learned out of nowhere, just like the others: he likes the specific shade of navy blue, the sound of his neighbor's vintage swing music creeping through his walls, and the feel of a charcoal stick between his fingers. Walking up to the counter in a grocer, Steve also learns his preference of sandwich as if a minuscule switch has suddenly been flipped within the dormant part of his brain—his lips spout an order he's not familiar with, but with the confidence of someone who'd tell him,  _trust me, you'll like it_.

That conviction doesn't seem to reach his face, because the cashier is giving him a funny look. Steve realizes he's all but frowning at the man a tad too late. "You sure about that, bud? We got other sandwiches, best in Queens."

Steve doesn't doubt that, he can see the awards claiming so lining the walls behind him. What Steve does doubt, however, are the extra pickles. Why does his brain only work when it wants to? What triggers it? One step inside of a deli and he's suddenly got a craving for mustard and swiss, but a thousand looks in the mirror every morning tells him nothing except that he needs to shave. He's tired of the little, fragmented information. He'd give anything to be able to see the whole picture already.

But he can't, and he doesn't, so he wordlessly pays the cashier in lieu of an answer and steps back to wait. Tries not to over analyze a stupid sandwich, because he'd learned the hard way that that never uncovered anything else besides a new layer of frustration. He lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Pickles. Today, that would just have to do.

Ten minutes after receiving his sandwich and exiting the store, Steve's already back in a fair mood. He tries not to spend too much time brooding over the inevitable; he's got long-term amnesia and there's fuck all he can do about it, and no matter how annoying they are, the small, seemingly insignificant memories do help in the end. His therapist tells him that; Steve mostly believes it. A year ago he'd just woken up from a four year-long coma without a clue to what his name or age was. At least now he knows he's Steve, he's twenty-seven—and he likes this sandwich, because holy hell, that  _is_ good.

He scarfs down his food as he walks the few blocks to Tony's studio, knocking once on the blink-and-you-miss-it door and letting himself in after hearing a loud "yeah" during a brief pause between the sound of a steady stream of crackling fire. By the time he rounds the corner into the main room, Tony's got his welding mask flipped over his face, torch in hand as he works it over a curve of metal that Steve thinks resembles an arm. The flame casts flickers of blue and orange light across the dark room, but Tony motions for Steve to flip on the switch once he notices him. 

"It's  _way_ too hot in here," he says after Tony shuts the torch off and slides his visor back. 

"Thanks, Cap' Obvious."

Ignoring him, Steve continues, "Seriously, it's ninety degrees out there and you're cramped in here playing with flame. You're either going to drown in sweat, pass out due to heat exhaustion, or set this place on fire."

"Probably all three." Tony gives him a shit-eating smirk and walks over to the mini-fridge shoved into the corner to grab some waters. He tosses Steve a bottle, gestures to the four basement-style windows touching the ceiling. "Air circulation. That's what those are for. And that," he adds, pointing at a sputtering fan on his desk.

Steve avoids saying how the fan is probably an electrical hazard as much as the whole building is a fire one, because Tony knows that already. Steve's pretty sure he just likes the danger, or maybe the challenge. 

"New project?" He asks instead, indicating the sculpture taking up most of the confined space. Tony nods. "What is it?"

"I'm calling it 'The Gauntlet'," he replies. "Just an idea. Still working on the fingers, tricky bastards. What about you? Anything... fresh?"

The way Tony phrases it, Steve knows what he's asking about. Almost three months after he woke up from his coma, his therapist encouraged him to keep some sort of journal to help him remember anything from before Afghanistan. The thing was, words didn't come so easily to him at the time, so his therapist instead suggested drawing. Doodling. Much to both of their surprise, Steve's talent surpassed that of just _doodles_. Even better, he began to draw things almost subconsciously; an inkling would become a dark line which would become some hazy memory spilled on to paper. However, that was the catch: the vagueness. He'd have this pretty little picture laid out before him, but it was like he was looking at a language he was once fluent in but has since completely forgotten. He  _knew_ he should know what it meant, but he just couldn't translate it. If he didn't keep telling himself  _the little things still help,_ he'd be consumed by aggravation. 

The sketches of Coney Island, Prospect Park, and Flatbush pointed him in the direction of Brooklyn, which would have been near to groundbreaking had the Army not already informed him that he was born and raised there. He supposed he had memories tied to those places, but they were ones that were lost on him. He drew other Brooklyn landmarks for four months straight before it— _she_ _—_ happened; at first, they were just silhouettes of a woman, so indistinct that Steve hadn't immediately noticed he was drawing the same one. For a while it was the same wavy-haired, curvy figure but in different poses. Then one morning, eyes. Colorless, because Steve didn't think blue or brown or gray felt right. Brunette or blonde didn't seem to fit when he tried to fill in the hair, either, but on a whim he snatched up the red and it just... _fit._ Green for the eyes. A soft, supple pink for the equally so lips, and a fair, peachy color for the skin. She was  _beautiful_. 

She was also nameless.

Steve had hoped that her face would be the much-needed trigger to set off a culmination of memories, but he'd taken one look at the posed woman and couldn't come up with anything. He drew the same guarded eyes and pretty mouth well into the hours of the night until his hand was thoroughly cramped and his cheeks were sticky with dried, frustrated tears. Still, he pulled himself up to his therapy appointment and recounted everything, hundreds of portraits tucked into a folder as proof. That was half a year ago, and the amount of pictures he's drawn of the woman have only gone up since. Sadly, he hasn't had any more breakthroughs as to who she might  _be_.

"Not in terms of memories, no," Steve answers with a sigh, pushing his hand through his hair. "I did work on another one, though. Of her."

"The hot, mysterious redhead à la Bond Girl?"

Steve huffs out a small laugh. "Yeah, hung it up in the gallery. It's doubtful, and maybe she doesn't live in New York, or maybe she’s dead, but... maybe she'll also miraculously stumble in and see it. Find me."

"Definitely doubtful," Tony agrees, "considering you choose to remain an anonymous artist.”

"I...." Steve starts, then ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck. "I don't think I'm there yet," he concedes after a moment. "Haven't reached that level of bravery."

The thing about Tony is that he's all good-natured jabs and messing around until he's completely serious. Like Steve's on/off switch that controls the memories in his brain, Tony's got one for his maturity level. While people may find that irritating, Steve appreciates it about him, really, because his life at the moment is all serious talks and barely-concealed looks of pity, whereas Tony is jokes and smiles. He only breaks out the big guns when he thinks it's necessary. Like now. "Cap, you're the bravest person I know," he says. "The shit you've been through... I think I'd lock myself up in my room and never come out. But you're here. Awake. Alive. Walking around, scolding me for my hazardous art studio." He smiles. "And you've still got  _hope_ after all of it. _That's_ bravery, my man."

Despite himself, Steve blushes. Just a tad. "Thanks, Tony," he says quietly, meaning it.

"Hey, I'm just telling the truth," he replies. "But really, you don't have to put yourself that far out there if you're not ready to yet. Shit like that, when it's personal... sometimes it's like revealing your soul before your actual face, you know?" He laughs, like he knows he's being a bit ridiculous. 

A sudden wave of déjà vu passes through Steve, but it's gone before he can even attempt to latch on and pry it for more details. He decides not to bring it up; somedays, if he tries too hard to remember, he just ends up with a massive migraine. The heat on top of that doesn't sound like a very appealing combination, so he chugs his water and not-so-subtly switches the topic of conversation to Pepper Potts, the owner and curator of the gallery he and Tony display their artwork in. It's a bit manipulative on Steve's part, considering he knows Tony's nearly head-over-heels for her.

"Actually, she agreed to go out on a date with me."

"Jeez, finally. It's been, what, two months since you first asked her out? She just pity you, or are you blackmailing her?"

"Ha-ha, very funny. See, a joke as crappy as that one takes bravery too," he says with a smirk. "As a matter of  _fact_ , she's just been really swamped with the gallery. You know her, she's a workaholic. I think it's kind of hot."

"That's because you're one too," Steve replies flatly.

"But only in the most irresponsible way!" Tony spreads his arms out at his sides and indicates the numerous bits of metal, intact or otherwise, scattered about the room. Even if he's working on a new project, he's always got at least ten old ones still in progress. Steve laughs at the grin on his face; he looks like a kid in a candy store. Or, more accurately, a neurotic tinkerer in the middle of a scrapyard. "Think about it. I'm the tiger, she's the tamer."

"I definitely do not want to think about that."

Tony shrugs. "Your loss. I think I'd make a great circus act."

"That's not where your mind was and you  _know_ it," Steve says, ignoring Tony's faux-innocent look. The alarm on his phone chimes and he slips it out of his pocket to silence it. "You ready?"

"Yeah." A mischievous grin flits across his face. "Sure you don't wanna drive?"

"Okay," Steve says airily. "Soon as the DMV gives me my license."

Tony pouts and says, "Spoilsport," but snatches his car keys from the hook on the wall and follows Steve out the door. Steve  _does_ want to drive, but he's still got a few more weeks of mandatory therapy sessions to attend before he'll be able to reapply for his license. Aside from all the mental and cognitive complications he'd suffered, his driver's license expired while he was in Afghanistan too. Well, while he was  _missing_ in Afghanistan.

He hides his flinch at the words from Tony; he'll save it for the therapy appointment he's on his way to. 

The drive to Bushwick is half an hour at best, but it goes by relatively quickly once Tony starts talking a mile a minute about whatever topic Steve can throw at him. They've only been friends for a few months, having met through the gallery in the first place, but they've become rather close since then. Never mind that Tony's pretty much Steve's  _only_ friend; many of the artists who showcase their stuff at Potts' Contemporary are pretty recluse (admittedly, Steve included), and the only other person besides Tony he knows from there is Peter, a fifteen year-old kid who's pretty good with a camera. Considering Peter has school and the age gap between he and Steve is rather big, they don't hang out much unless he's hanging around Tony's studio. Absentmindedly, Steve wonders if the kid's aunt has any idea how dangerous Tony's place really is. Considering Peter seems to idolize him, probably not.

Tony rambles about sports, his addiction to Burger King, anti-gun laws and The Gauntlet before they pull up in front of Steve's therapist's office, the name Sharon Carter, Ph.D. engraved on a gold plaque beside the front door. Tony ducks his head down to take a look outside through Steve's window. "You sure you don't want me to stick around? I don't mind."

"No, it's fine. You don't have to," Steve answers honestly. He'd say he doubts Tony would pair well with sitting in a dull lobby for nearly an hour, but the both of them know that's a lie: Tony, despite his habit of non-stop fidgeting, would brave through his boredom if it meant supporting Steve. And he really,  _really_ appreciates that. He does. But Tony doesn't know the  _whole_ truth about Steve's amnesia besides the fact that he went missing in Afghanistan. He doesn't know that Steve was gone for almost three whole months. That he lost his memory when a landmine was triggered ten feet from where he was standing, sending him hurling backwards into a boulder. Doesn't know that Steve felt the blood trickling from the crown of his head and down the back of his neck for hours after being taken by a nearby terror cell until it finally dried, flaky and dusty with sand. That no matter how much they tortured him, he just couldn't remember anything, not even what his own damn face looked like. Tony doesn't know that Steve had once been an actual fucking prisoner of war, only sitting here now because he'd managed to strangle his guards, run,  _survive_ with what little strength he had left.

He nearly died in the desert. He doesn't even remember leaving it, just waking up in a military hospital with a bandage wrapped around his head and people with soft voices but stern faces telling him he'd been in a coma for almost five years. They spouted words at him like lucky, strong, stubborn. Despite sleeping for so long, Steve just felt tired.

Tony didn't know any of that. Tony knew the Steve who was optimistic and taking things one day at a time, not the Steve who stared at the ceiling while he should be sleeping and chanted  _the little things, the little things, they help, they help_ over and over in his head until the sun rose. That Steve was hidden from the world, sometimes even himself when he could sink back into the warm embrace of denial and pretend for a few minutes that he's not utterly frustrated with attending these therapy sessions every Tuesday only to learn nothing new whatsoever.

"...so I'll pick you up in fifty, then?"

Steve blinks. "Huh?"

Tony shoots him a concerned, appraising look out of the corner of his eye but gives Steve the decency of repeating his sentence in a normal tone of voice, not slowly like some of the doctors or nurses do whenever he gets stuck in his head. "I said, I forgot to tell you that Pepper wanted us to stop by and pick up some old pieces. You know, from older displays. She has two or three of yours, but I can pick them up now if you don't feel up to it?"

"No, no, I'll go with you. If you don't mind driving me again."

"Of course not. See you in an hour."

Steve ducks out of the car, takes the steps leading up to the office one at a time. The receptionist beams at him. "Good afternoon, Captain."

It's different than what Tony calls him. Cap. It's a nickname, sort of an inside joke. Captain is too formal. A title he doesn't remember earning.

Still, he smiles. He's good at being polite, he's discovered. "Hello. I'm here for my six o'clock."

"Of course. Dr. Carter will be right with you."

Less than five minutes later, he's sitting in a leather armchair on the other side of his therapist's desk, staring at a picture of a brunette woman with a forties-era hairstyle perched on the edge. He waits for the inevitable question, the same one that kicks off these sessions every single Tuesday. 

"Did anything new come back to you since our last appointment?"

Steve almost always has the same answer. "No, not really." Sharon (because according to her, "Carter" was her aunt and "Dr. Sharon" made her sound like a daytime psychologist) gives him a look that he knows all too well. Her eyes prod him with one word each:  _little_ and  _things_. "Today I learned that I like extra pickles on my pastrami."

"It's progress," she says, noticing his flat tone.

"I know that. But I feel like..." He chews his lip, debating. "I feel like my mind and memories are the tortoise, slowly struggling along the path, and all I want at this point is to be the damn hare. The tortoise takes baby steps. The hare strides. And I know the tortoise wins in the end, but does the fable ever say how long it takes him? How long the path goes on for? I don't want to be sixty years old and thinking, did I go to my high school prom? Did it take me weeks and weeks to work up the nerve to ask some pretty girl, or did I already have one? Or, conversely, if I went stag. Or at all. Who knows, I could have been too unattractive, or an immature little prick, or too damn shy to put myself out there at all."

He says that last part a bit more bitterly than the others, thinking about his art in Potts' Contemporary.  _Anonymous_. Tony was right. What  _if_ the redhead saw the colored sketch he'd hung up in there and she couldn't do anything about it because of that stupid, insecure feeling that nags at him every time he goes to sign the corner of a finished piece but drops the charcoal instead? He nearly scoffs, because in this case  _she's_ the hare, but Steve isn't racing her, he's chasing her. Always one step ahead, too fast for him to catch.

Belatedly, he realizes he said that out loud.

"We've established that this woman is a symbol; one of everything you've lost. And she's a symbol of victory. You believe if you somehow find her or vice-versa, you'll have all the answers you need."

"Of course I do!" He doesn't yell, not really. And he's not angry. He's just... desperate. "Of course I do. She's the first and only person I've ever drawn or...  _remembered_. I have no idea what my parents may have looked like before they died— _apparently_ died, because I don't even remember that much. No next of kin, right? That's what the army said. So this woman  _has_ to mean something. She has to. Because if she doesn't..."

Steve swallows. He doesn't wanted to finish that thought. He's avoided the possibility like the plague ever since it hit him in the middle of the night a few weeks ago.

But it's not a therapist's job to pull punches. It's their job to help the patient see the truth, the reality of their situation. "Because if she doesn't, you're at a dead end."

"I'm grasping at straws already as it is. She's the last one. My last hope."

"Steve." Sharon sits up, gives him a look that he can only describe as bracing. "Things happen in this world. Amazing things. Miracles. And I don't control any of that, so I won't tell you that the odds of you finding this woman are impossible. Some things happen like that—they're just meant to be. But you're only partially prepared for that option. You're thinking, I'll meet her and she'll be able to fill the gaps. But Steve, you have to think about it as a whole. She could very well be just as damaged as you."

"What, you think she's an amnesiac veteran who spent months at the mercy of terrorists too?" He tries to make it sound light, but doesn't think he succeeds.

"If she's as important to you as you're hoping—as you  _feel_ —then losing you may have affected her. Maybe for the worse. Some people don't cope with trauma as well as others," she says. "Like you, for instance."

"Tony told me the same thing earlier today."

"Well, Tony's right. As people, we go through all sorts of traumas. Someone who lost their childhood pet could be faring much worse in the long run than you, someone who was a prisoner of war in a foreign territory. It depends on the person. Pain is relative, and so is recovery. Some people are the tortoise, some the hare. But the strength it takes to brave through it will always be the same."

☽ ☾

Natasha is left shell-shocked by her own likeness for all of five minutes before the panic attack once again seizes her in full force. She manages to finally spot the exit, stumbling past the concerned curator standing amidst an array of metal sculptures and covered canvases before throwing her weight against the door. The hot air feels stifling, like a warm, wet rag being thrown across her face, and her lungs burn with the effort of breathing. She vaguely hears voices behind her, the sounds of a car pulling up to a curb, but her vision is constricted with tears and all of her senses are mostly overloaded by her heart beating erratically against her rib cage.  _It'll pass_ , she tells herself. Repeats it over and over in her head, only pausing every now and then to remind herself to try and take deep breaths. 

She drags herself a few more feet down the sidewalk before her legs buckle and her shoulder connects with the side of the building. She has no choice but to sink to the ground, head bent forward so that her hair covers her face like a curtain. 

"Excuse me. Miss!" A voice she knows. Knew. "Ma'am, are you okay?"

"I think she's having a panic attack," says a man who sounds as if he recognizes what she's going through firsthand. "No, don't touch her. If it's bad, she could go into shock. Hey, wait, I said—Steve.  _Steve!_ _"_

Steve?

_No._

A hand cautiously touches her arm, but she doesn't have the strength to pull away.  _Steve?_ "Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Just wanna make sure you're not hurt. Did anything happen to you?"

The sound of a suctioned door opening, then another voice, a woman's: "Tony—Steve—she was a customer. I don't know what happened, she was standing in front of one of the displays, and then all of a sudden..."

"It's okay." Tony. The metal sculptor. "She's just having a panic attack, Pep, she'll be fine in a few moments. Steve, seriously. Give her some space. You aren't helping."

Still having her gaze fixed to the ground, Natasha feels rather than sees the first man step back, but she doesn't really register it. While her heart slows, her mind spirals:  _it can't be, it can't be, it can't be. You're not real. I'm imagining you. You're dead._

Pepper. "What's she saying?"

_Dead._ "I don't know, I can't really hear her."

Pepper. "Should we call the police?"

Tony. "No, like I said, just give her a sec. Trust me."

_Dead._ "I don't know. What if—"

Tony. "Rogers, just trust me, all right?"

Natasha's heart stops. She's gripping her knees so hard that her knuckles are white, she's got a crick in her neck and she can feel tears, sticky and hot, clinging to her face. On top of all that, she feels split open—like some twisted being has seen every one of her inner demons and has stuck them all together like pieces of a puzzle, or parts of a man whose body they could not find among a platoon of others five years ago.

"Steve," says a voice that is not her own.

There are protests, but it's only a few seconds before there's a figure kneeling down next to her. She can... feel it. Feel  _him._ "Um, yes, hi. I'm Steve."

"Rogers," her mouth repeats. "Steve Rogers."

And then, with strength and bravery she wasn't even aware she had anymore, Natasha looks up. 


End file.
